Hollow
by Regal Panther
Summary: She was created to manage the humans who live in Canada's lands. Without humans, she is nothing - empty. And Canada has so few humans and so much land, it's as though the land is empty.


Ottawa is the only female capital for a reason. It's not because she's weak or over-emotional, as some would lead you to believe. It's not because she's kind and hates conflict. It's not because she trusts too much or because she doesn't seem to dislike anyone. It's not because she tried to solve every problem by coming to a peaceful compromise that makes everyone happy. It's not because she's a tool for politics.

It's because she is empty.

Her country has so much empty space, so much land and water and animals that she doesn't know what to do with them. The sheer amount of available resources in her own lands frightens her, unlike Canada, who thinks himself lucky. But as a capital, she is aware of every single possibility the future may hold, and it frightens her. The lands of Canada are mostly frozen wastelands and cold cities with short summers. There is nothing she has that other countries don't, and what she does have repels many humans. She is painfully aware that people prefer warm climates, and she wakes up crying some nights because of the nightmares caused by her fear.

She fears being alone.

She was created to manage the humans who live in Canada's lands and she sometimes struggles to do so through her fear of being deserted. Without humans, she is nothing but a remnant - an empty, soulless being who used to have everything and now has nothing. Without humans to give opinions, to build structures, to make families and friends, to connect and innovate and communicate and learn, she is empty.

She hates being empty.

When Canada was young, she was old. When he appeared to be a child, she was a full-grown woman of powerful stature, made specifically to raise and protect the young nation. As he aged, she grew younger, eventually settling at 16 - an age associated with "coming of age" - when people go from immature younglings to responsible young adults on their way to citizenship. As Canada grew and people slowly trickled in from other countries, the hole in her chest where a heart should have rested was slowly filled with their voices, their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, their fears, preferences, and nightmares.

But she's still empty.

There is so much _space_, just open plains of ice and snow waiting for the population to reach them, and she feels the difference of populace over land with sharp pains in her hollow chest. Every night, she searches for a heartbeat in her own veins and finds none. She is still empty, still hollow, still alone, and she's scared of what little she has disappearing. Canada knows this, and does what he can, but laws are in place for a reason and he cannot simply accept everyone who wished to inhabit a piece of his land. He does what he can for her and encourages people who can sustain jobs to come to their country. He encouraged people to have at least two children so his population wouldn't decline, which was one of Ottawa's worst nightmares.

It's not enough.

It might never be. Canada is a North Country, cold by nature - by law of nature. Humans have a natural aversion to the cold, as it stops their hearts and freezes their blood in their veins. General Winter, called Father by Ottawa even though it is partially his fault she is so empty, is aware of her fears. He tries his best to keep the worst of the winter storms in the places where humans don't dwell, but snow much coat the land. Still, he gives human cities the gentlest of snow and he coats their fields with ice instead of their main roads.

And it will never be enough.

Humans will never choose a frozen wasteland as their home. Ottawa will forever be empty. She will forever be lacking something vital, something distinctively _human_ because her figurative heart is just so big there aren't enough humans in the entire world, let alone her country, to fill it with love and voices. She is the only female capital because she nurtures life, loves life, loves happiness and peace and unity, and the other capitals, who are all males, cannot seem to understand why she abhors the glory of victory over a foe and the great bloodlust and joy that comes with battle, with warfare.

She hates pain.

Hates it with all her being, with all her spirit. When she sees someone in pain she has a need, a pressing, painful _need_ to help them in any way she can. She will work until she cannot move, even with her status as a Capital, as a Nation's Heart, and when she wakes from her forced rest she will regret not being able to do more. No matter how many times she is taken advantage of, she will continue to help people, to encourage peaceful endings to arguments and compromise instead of fighting.

She doesn't want anyone else to be in such pain.

When she sees someone who is lonely, she curls into herself, unable to bear seeing them in pain. Her empathy will be her undoing, but until it actually destroys her entirely she will use it to her advantage. She will fix people's problems and protect them from people who wish harm upon them. She will build shelters and gather food and money and defend those who cannot defend themselves, because she knows what true pain feels like - knows it intimately, knows it every second of every day of every century - and wishes not that her enemies would know it, but that it didn't exist.

She is empty.

She wants that hole to be filled. She works to fill it with the satisfaction of seeing a sad face turn happy, of seeing despair turn into hope, of seeing anger turn into contentment, of seeing hate turn into tolerance, then acceptance, then love. She fills the hole with whatever she can. With smiling faces, with laughter, with tears of joy, with happy memories, with festivals and fundraisers and walk-a-thons and corn roasts and whatever else she can think of. She is empty and it hurts, but she will not let anyone see her pain because it would take from their happiness - it would take from the stockpile of happiness she uses to patch the hole where her heart should be. She is selfish, in her own opinion, and only Canada, her other half - no, they were one being in two bodies, one mind, one spirit, one "heart", one set of memories and emotions and feelings split in two for better balance - knows how much she suffers every day.

Some others come close, though.

Prussia, a dead nation with no land and no people, knows what it is to be empty. So does Denmark, made of sand and stone from Norway's lands, and Russia deserted out of fear, and Singapore, who erased his own history, and many others. They know what emptiness feels like, but they do not know what hollowness is like. They don't know how it feels to hear silence where there should be hundreds of millions of voices. They can't relate to her empty lands because even Russia has people scattered all over. Even Russia, another North Country, doesn't have such large, abandoned, _empty_ expanses.

And she still smiles.

She smiles to encourage others to smile. She tries her best to be happy, to not let her sadness take control, to not let despair overtake her. It's hard, but she makes do. Her immigrants, from so many countries and so many cultures, help to quell Silence bit by bit. She is still hollow - will remain hollow for a very, very long time - but these voices, so different from one another, help to remind her that there are other countries. That she and Canada are not alone. That Hungary and Russia and Scotland and Germany and Italy and Turkey and Japan and China and United States and Spain and Portugal and so many others are right beside her.

They aren't close enough to touch her, but she sees them.

And that's enough for Ottawa who, despite her emptiness, her hollow chest, her lack of heartbeat, her lack of humans that leads to lack of humanity, despite her near-divinity, despite her differences from other capitals, despite the crushing despair that comes out every night and makes her crawl into a corner and weep from the force of it, is happy. Not a powerful happiness that others experience. More a contentedness that comes from knowing that the world will never be empty, truly empty of life, ever again. There will always be at least viruses and bacteria and insects, and if the need should arise, evolution would start its cycle again to create animals and people once more. Maybe not humans again, maybe not bears and giraffes and rats again, but definitely animals. Definitely _people_, definitely sentient beings whose voices filled the hole in her heart.

Ottawa is the only female capital for a reason.

It's because she's empty.

She will never be a mother.

Her only wish will never be filled.

She will never create life.

No capital has ever wanted to before. But she does, and she can't, and it kills her a little more each day.


End file.
